I talked a lot with Yin Hui from Xi’an about China and the US, and I have an interesting opinion from him. He is certainly quite critical of the government. He does not attribute China’s great economic success to the CCP, but rather to new technology and farmers coming from the countryside to work. He says that, if anything, the government has gotten in the way of economic growth.

Something interesting the woman I met at the Hostel in Nanjing said. Speaking about Xinjiang, she said she had asked a man in Kashgar whether he was angry that his old, cultural home was being knocked down and his being forced to live in a flat. He answered that no, he was okay with it because he was being paid to move.

After a little more than a week in China (with most of it in the more liberal and free Hong Kong), my research is coming along pretty nicely. I am going to have more face to face interviews soon, but my observations have served me fairly well so far. One of the most interesting events I observed was a Candlelight vigil remembering Tienanmen Square 22 years later in Victoria Park in Central Hong Kong. Here is what I wrote shortly after attending: